Sheep Guarding Llama

Liesl came and climbed into bed with us around eight.  Twenty minutes later, Luciana was up too – also needing to climb into bed with us.  This queen, rather than king, bed is just way too small for this family.  I can’t wait until we can move our real bed(s) up from Texas.

I got up and went to Daily Bagel on my own, Liesl told me that last time it took too long and she does not want to go with me this time.  It takes at least half an hour, so she is not really wrong.  I drove out and got $63 of bagels, cream cheese and pastries.  It might sound crazy but it will last us for days.  The bagels there are so good.  Although I always seem to hurt my throat when trying to eat them.

Spent a lot of the day working down in the basement.  Dominica went out shopping pretty early on and was gone for many hours.  She got shoes and a dress for the Christmas party that I have at work this week and went grocery shopping.  So it was just the girls and I for much of the day.

When Dominica got home she camped out on the couch and watched shows on the laptop while I mostly worked in the basement and hung out with Liesl and Luciana.  We got a lot of time together today.

At eleven this evening Liesl, Luciana and I watched an episode of Doctor Who.  They love watching it with me, which I think is amazing.  Who would ever have guessed that I would have a two year old and a five year old who would beg and beg to get to watch Doctor Who!

It’s Friday.  Was hoping that today would be a short day (well, ended around five thirty) but I was in the office until nearly seven.  It is pretty warm, nearly fifty degrees, in Connecticut while in Dallas it is freezing rain and everything is closed and many things are without power.  Quite a difference, nice and warm here with a gentle rain.  And Dallas is in a disaster.  They are really getting it hard down there.  I am glad that we moved when we did!

I got home at eight.  Spent the evening playing with the girls.  When it was just about bed time they asked me if they could watch a show with me.  I asked them what they wanted to watch and Liesl immediately said “Doctor Who!” and Luciana chimed in saying that she wanted to watch Doctor Who too!  I am so proud of my girls.

We watched one episode of the fourth season together then it was time to put the girls to bed.  Once I had read them “George Shrinks” and “Pete’s a Pizza”, Dominica and I went down to the basement and watched two episodes of Sleepy Hollow.

Feeling a big better today.  Went into the office and found out that the girls are coming home today rather than waiting until tomorrow even though I am at the office until very late tonight because there is bad weather expected for tomorrow.  So my plan is to cut out of the party early tonight so that I can get home and see the girls before they have to go to bed.

My drive in this morning had light fog up in Peekskill but horrible fog by the time that I was in New Canaan.  Dominica faced really bad fog the whole drive.  It took her a lot longer than expected to drive from dad’s place down to Peekskill and she was pretty exhausted when they finally arrived.  She had left right after having breakfast with dad at the Omega Grill in Geneseo and going shopping at the Geneseo Walmart where Luciana picked out her new Minnie Mouse Potty to use for potty training which starts today.

Work was fine today.  Good, actually.  Much better than yesterday.  This afternoon I had a meeting that went late and took up the bulk of the evening.  From there it was straight on to Stamford for the departmental Christmas party where I had planned to be all night.

The party was good, and packed.  I had no idea that there would be so many people.  It was very loud and crowded so I spent most of the evening with a Blue Moon in hand outside where it was warm enough that a light fleece was perfect.  I ended up staying for two hours, instead of four, so that I could get home to see the girls.

The drive home from there was only fifty minutes, not so bad.  The party was basically directly on my way home so I didn’t do any extra driving.  I was very thankful for that.  I got home right about ten o’clock which wasn’t horrible.

The girls were so excited that I was home, as I was so excited that they were home.  Luciana was trying out her new potty when I arrived.  It wasn’t long before she had her first success on the potty!  Huzzahs all around.  This is a red letter day.  After months of “problems” this is a big step in the right direction.  A huge step.  We are very excited.  Potty training is a long journey, but at least it is one that we have started on.  We are now on the road to being diaperless, one of the major achievements of parenthood.

We all stayed up till about midnight then we shuffled off to bed. I am so glad that my family is home.  I have a really hard time when the girls are gone.  A day is fine but the past month has been horrible.

Slept a full eight hours last night.  I woke up early but told myself to go back to sleep and get all of the rest that I could.  After a good night’s sleep I was feel much better this morning.

I remembered to check the mail, for the first time since moving back to Peekskill, this morning and there was a load of birthday cards for Liesl.  She has not been home since several days before her birthday so she has not had a chance to see her cards yet.  So those are waiting for her.  I am really checking the mail diligently, starting today, because we are waiting on the package from the bank that will allow us to start our home refinancing process.  I am concerned that it will have gone to the wrong place as twice today we got mail for different neighbours.  I have no idea how the delivery of mail continues to be so problematic wherever we go.

The drive into work was pretty good.  Very low traffic today.  Odd, it is only Wednesday.  Should be normal volume.

Work was much better today and my stress level is back down roughly to normal.  I decided to leave work at more of a normal time tonight, give myself time to get home and relax a little.  Tomorrow is going to be long as I have stuff that runs late and then a party to go to that goes very late.  So I am not expecting to be home until after midnight tomorrow.

Got home, made some veggie cold cut sandwiches and got caught up on SGL so that I am completely up today.  Tomorrow is my last day alone, I should see the family on Friday.

Dominica got the Acadia packed up today, nearly everything that got shipped up to New York in the last load is now in the car.  So when she gets here on Friday we are going to have a field day getting what we have set up in the house.  A lot of it is toys for the girls which will help immensely with them being so restless in the house.

Liesl finally got a chance to go out with grandpa today and make the snowman that she has been talking about for a month.  She has been so excited.  I saw the picture of it that Dominica posted on Facebook this evening and it is the most adorable thing ever.  Liesl is so happy that she is hugging her snowman in dad’s yard.

My latest article, The End of XP: Choices for Business, headlined today on Datamation.  This is not one that I wrote all on my own but was a topic specifically commissioned for me to write.  Glad to get an article published there again, it has been a while.  I have been too busy to keep the work flowing.

Today started off well but by the end of the day it turned out to have been a really stressful day.  I worked pretty late, probably not a good idea, and on the way home stopped off in Pound Ridge and picked up a bottle of wine.  It was really not a good day.

Got home and it was probably eight.  Talked to Art on the phone for probably an hour, maybe a bit more, and then watched two episodes of Family Guy on Hulu while drinking half of the bottle of Riesling.  Went to bed at eleven.  Decided that I needed sleep if I was feeling stressed out.  Seeing the family would help, but I can’t do that.  So sleep is the best option to make myself feel better.